Police and military trial 3D tracking technology

Scotland Yard and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are each investigating a software program that can track suspects' movements online.

The security software creates a three-dimensional graphic of a person's movements and communications, gathering information from sources such as financial transactions, mobile-phone calls, satellite navigation equipment and social- networking sites.

The GeoTime program, which is already used by some US police forces, is purported to analyse mountains of complex data to create an animation which highlights otherwise unseen connections between suspects. "Users are able to watch events and activities unfold over space and time with a fully functional timeline and animated display system," said its owner, Oculus Info Inc.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We have used dummy data to look at how the software works and have explored how we could use it to examine police vehicle movements, crime patterns and telephone investigations. The software is not in operational use."

An MoD spokesman added the military was also assessing the program for military use.